


The Haunting of Dana Katherine Scully

by Sarie_Fairy



Series: Fictober 2020 [23]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, Ghosts, Haunting, Love, MSR, Post-Episode: s11e07 Rm9sbG93ZXJz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:34:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27183898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarie_Fairy/pseuds/Sarie_Fairy
Summary: My word for this exchange was Haunted, prompted by the lovely Tori.I really enjoyed how much scope there was for this word.I hope you like my interpretation, Tori. Chapter 2 will be posted tomorrow. xFICTOBER Day 24 - Prompt: “sometimes you can even see”
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Series: Fictober 2020 [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951573
Comments: 30
Kudos: 82
Collections: X-Files Horror Fanfic Exchange (2020)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fandomsandxfiles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandomsandxfiles/gifts).



After Dana Scully’s rented dwelling had been blown to pieces, (a long story), she needed somewhere to stay. Her—let’s call him her estranged husband—had offered for her to _‘come back home,’_ as he had put it.

That was far too emotionally loaded for Scully to choose; to return, out of necessity. If she did indeed decide to ‘come home’, it would be because of well thought out reason, not because she had nowhere else to go. So, she elected to stay at her mother’s over the weekend; have some space, and a chance to think. 

Conscious of his feelings, she explained truthfully how she and her brothers had decided to sell. The house had sat vacant since Maggie Scully’s somewhat sudden death. Her brother Bill had arranged for repairs to be done, asked Scully to check on the progress; some plumbing, a mended fence, and an issue with a gas pipe in the kitchen. 

He had offered to go with her. Mulder had. To help. To Support. To be precisely whatever she needed. It was something she wanted to do alone, though. To sit amongst the memories, the old souls, to say goodbye—for the last time. 

Dana Scully knew of ghosts. However, to her, they took the form of her mother’s scent, hitting her as she pushed open her front door. A hair tie in the bathroom drawer, still wrapped in Missy’s dark blonde hair. The impression of her father, she would sink into when she sat in his favourite chair.

It was just on dark, by the time she got there, and she dropped her bags by the entrance. Taking a breath, she closed her eyes, and emotion began to rise up from deep within. The house was both comforting and the loneliest place on Earth.

Naturally gravitating up the stair, into her mother’s room, she lay down without thought, curled up on her bed. Overcome by tiredness and melancholy, she immersed herself in the florals splashed across of the bedspread, in the gentle scent of Lily of the Valley. It had always comforted her, brought her mother to her when they had to be separated— _on the run._ Eyes closed; it was like she could almost feel her…

A presence in the room began rousing her. A dip to the edge of the bed, a tender voice, “ _Dana,”—_ sotto _._ Her mother’s voice, warm and soothing. The palm of a cool, familiar hand stroking her brow, sweeping loose hair back from her forehead. 

Scully had a vague thought that she had been asleep for some hours as she rolled toward the voice. Keeping her eyes closed, she indulged in the maternal energy that engulfed her.

_“Dana darling, you must get up. You need to see.”_

Stirring, the room was in complete darkness—she had laid down before the sun’s light had disappeared entirely, without turning on a light. 

“Mom,” she called, disorientated. Fumbling, she switched on a bedside lamp. The bedroom lit up with a soft glow. Scully all alone.

A chill ran through her, up her spine, prickling the back of her neck. A door slamming somewhere in the house, made her jump, reverberated off the walls, with an echo… _“you need to see… Dana darling … come see…”_

“Mom?” she called again, shuffling off the bed, making for the pitch-black of the hallway. The house was eerily quiet, the floorboards beneath the carpet, that would usually creek and squeak as you walked across the room, strangely silent.

Stepping toward the door, she found herself wadding through soundless, dense air; icy. Absurdly, she felt a pang fear, the last gleam of light from the room bouncing off her, as she stepped beyond the door frame into shadowy obscurity. Eyes attempting to adjust, seeking anything to latch on to, found movement ahead, far away down the hall. A figure disappearing into a room, a faint blue glow emitting from inside.

Tiptoeing toward the light, she pushed her way into a room. Her mother was inside, back to the door; Maggie sitting in a chair, by a hospital bed. Scully quickly scanned the room, the door to her mother’s hallway, was gone, in its place, a distance a nurse’s station. A fluoresce buzz from above mingled with beeping machines, the unmistakable sound of a ventilator. 

“Mom?” she ventured, trepidatiously; the few staff there, paying her no mind. Slowly making her way to her mother, Maggie was unmoving, unresponsive, still facing away. It was then Scully saw who was in the bed, who her mother sat by, and her knees just about gave way— 

A crashing, someone bursting through the doors, dragged her attention away, snapped her knees back into place. It was Mulder. So, so young, in shock. He looked at Maggie, sitting still, eyes fixed to the person in the bed. _Scully_ in the bed. Then he spun, began yelling at nurses, doctors—wild, fierce. 

“He loved you then, don’t you see,” her mother said to her, but not from seated in the chair, not the terrified younger mother in the chair beside her dying daughter. The voice belonged to the mother she remembered from so very recently. Stepping beside her, Maggie looped her arm through Scully’s elbow, “don’t you see?” she asked again.

“Mom?” Scully exclaimed, emotions overwhelming her, bottom lip trembling. Maggie smiled warmly, that all-knowing look, that expression of love she would bathe her children, her grandchild, in.

Scully’s head was spinning. Eyes large and wet, gazing at her mother, alive, beside her, then twisting back to Mulder, to witness the scene, the frantic commotion. Mulder, desperate and raw, yelling and screaming like a madman. _Like a man crazy in love._

Security grabbed him.

“Mulder! No. Stop it! Let him go!” Scully screamed at the men, who were pulling him back, restraining him. She ran at them, ready to tear him out of their grip, but she drifting right through them; a chill curling about her.

Then everything was gone. 

“Mulder?” 

Gone.

Scully whirled around.

“Mom?”

But she was all alone in a darkened hospital corridor. 

Footsteps. Mulder walking toward her, head hung, shoulders rounded. Changed, a little older, in a suit. He walked past her, almost through her, and she followed him; her footfall silent against the linoleum. Pushing his way through a door, Scully trailed after him. A ward in semi-darkness; herself in the bed, once again, fast asleep. This time, no machines. Even in the dim light, she could make out her features; pallor and bony, purplish smears beneath her eyes. Mulder looked broken as he walked around to the other side of the bed. 

Scully watched on, concerned, holding her breath. Wondering what he was doing there once he noticed she was asleep. Then he crumbled, dissolved, wept and held her hand. Broken. 

Scully began to cry too, to see him like that, trying to bite back the emotions, her teeth carved into her bottom lip. And then, her mother was there—her gentle touch. Her scent.

“He said he came…” Scully began, through tears, walking to him, beside him. She hovered her hand above his shoulder, fearful her touch would slice right through him. Looking back at her mother, she told her, with something like regret. “I didn’t know he cried, not like this.”

“I used to think, back then, back _here_ —” Maggie said, looking about the room, “—when I would witness you two together; _sometimes you can even see the love.”_ Her eyes settled warmly on Scully before she continued against the backdrop of Mulder’s sorrowful sounds. “It was in the air; _I_ could feel it. But you, my darling, I don’t know why, why you couldn’t see.” 

Scully’s shook her head, looked from her mother, back down to Mulder, to herself in the bed.

A bang. 

A door slammed somewhere outside the room, and Scully’s head snapped toward it. She jumped and spun around, but quickly turned back and he was gone, _she_ was gone. Maggie no longer there either; Scully standing in an empty room. Cold and gloomy. 

“Scullaay!” Mulder’s voice called out, ricocheting off the bare floor, walls. He called for her over and over again, and she followed his voice, out of the room.

“Mulder?” she ventured, somehow knowing he would not hear her.

He called her name, again and again. Out in the passage, he breezed past her, torch in hand. 

“Scuullayy!!!” he yelled, panicked, shouted for her. Whizzed past, gun raised. “Scullaay!” Numerous apparitions of him, calling her name. Desperately.

Wandered the hallway, wading through his urgent pleas, calling and calling for her; “Scuullayy!!!, his distant voice changed. Morphed into joy. “Scully, Scully, I can hear a car,” she heard him say.

Then he was there, both of them in a room, and he was grinning, ear to ear. A little older, worn—she knew that Mulder. That was the Mulder she had known completely, jean and T-Shirt casual, expression lines etched a little deep into his handsome face. He was smiling at _Scully,_ her younger self. And she looked happy. Excited. More content than she had ever remembered herself being.

It was the living room, of their little house, drenched in beautiful lamplight, flames flickering and crackling in the fireplace.

Scully stood in the kitchen, watched the scene before her, as her mom, her more youthful mother bustled in the front door, arms outstretched, tears streaked down her cheeks. Younger Scully fell into her arms, sobbing.

Scully couldn’t help but cry too, watching, remembering—in her mind, and in her skin—what it was to be wrapped in her mother’s arms. 

Both women stood in the doorway, embracing, clinging on and fervently telling of how much they had missed one another. Their counterparts, in the kitchen, older Maggie there, silently watching too, her arm slung around Scully’s waist. 

Younger Maggie reached out her hand, clasped it around Mulder’s. “Thank you,” she mouthed, still holding Scully to her, and Mulder nodded, wiped his cheeks.

“Dana,” she beamed, hold her daughter’s arms, “do you know; I saw from the driveway, the North Star is directly over your house.”

“I didn’t see,” Scully said, smiling back at her, wiping her damp face.

“Yep,” Maggie said nodding, tearing up again. Cupping her daughter’s cheek, she proceeded, “Ahab watching over you, my darling.”

“You remember this?” Scully’s mother whispered from beside her, “your first night here?”

Scully nodded, “I do, I do. I was so, so happy.” Maggie pulled her in tighter. “We were both so happy,” she choked, biting her lip. 

Closing her eyes, she got lost for a moment, lamenting, knowing what was to follow. Then she shook her head, turned to her mother, managed to smile.

“And, you were right,” she said, changing the subject, “about Polaris. I’d drive up the driveway, home from work every night, and I’d see it. That fixed point in the night sky. Dad’s favourite.”

A phone began to ring, dragging her focus from her mother. Scully turned her head to where the phone was, on the wall. The sound wasn’t coming from there, though. Following the ringing, she made her way out of the room and found herself in a long hallway. Distant ringing calling her, propelling her forward.

The sound got louder, and Scully urged her way through doors and down corridors, and still, it got louder and louder. Pushing open another door, a familiar room—and she stopped, dead in her tracks. Saw herself lying on her mother’s bed. Asleep. The noise got so loud then that she had to cover her ears, squeezing her eyes shut, as if that might tone down the noise too.

A painful buzzing in her ears, she jolted, eyes snapping open. The phone on her mother’s nightstand was rining. From her place, lying on the bed, she grabbed it off the hook, stopping the trilling. Mulder’s voice once again, far away, saying her name. 

“Scully? Scully?”

All at once, she realised Mulder was on the other end of the phone.

“Hello?”

“Scully! Are you okay?” He sounded panicked. “The phone’s been ringing and ringing.”

“Yes, I’m fine,” she assured him, sitting herself up against the headboard. “Just fell asleep. Why didn’t you call my cell?”

“We don’t have phones at the moment,” he said slowly, “remember?”

She recalled then. Of course they didn’t. They had both destroyed them, after a date that went awry. (A story for another time.)

“Oh, I forgot for a minute. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, I was just calling to say good night. See how you were.”

“I’m okay. I’ve just a little headache actually, but I’ll take some Tylenol, get some more sleep.”

“Okay. You sure you don’t want me there? Or, you could come back home, here?”

“I’m fine Mulder, thank you. Um, good night.”

“‘Night Scully,” he said, warmly.

They both hesitated on the line before Scully hung up.

Heading downstairs to the kitchen, to the medicine cabinet, she rubbed at her temples, somewhat rattled by the very vivid dream she had just had. Procuring the pills, she grabbed her bags from by the door and went upstairs for a shower. 

After, she still felt ill, so she decided to forgo dinner. She found her way into the spare room—the one she and Missy used to share, whenever the whole family would gather for holidays. _Missy’s_ bed was the only one with sheets on it, so she climbed in, under the covers. Within a moment of her head hitting the pillow, she was asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is now going to be 3 chapters. Chapter 2 just became too long. 
> 
> FICTOBER Day 25 - Prompt: “that’s the easy part”

On cold mornings, Missy used to creep into Dana’s bed, plant the soles of her ice-cold feet onto her calves to wake her, dissolving into fits of giggles when Dana would squeal. Then she would clamp her hand over her mouth to muffle the sounds. Through mock protestations, Dana would bask in the attention from her big sister. Once she had quieted down, Missy would snuggle under the covers and quiz her about her life. Ask her about boys, her dreams. About why she was so serious all the time. She would listen to Dana’s well thought out responses, opinions on things, sometimes offer a counter to them; challenge Dana on her ideas. Eventually, Dana suggested that Missy should become a psychologist. Missy only laughed and told her that she was only fluent in the workings of one Dana Katherine Scully. It was a joke after that, ‘you should become a psychologist,’ she would say when Missy got beneath the workings of her mind, her heart.

They would remain that way, talking until it was time to rise at ‘O’ six hundred. Sometimes, when it was particularly freezing, they would sneak down to the living room and restoke the fire, curl up under a blanket until their mother came downstairs.

A vaguely recognisable sensation disturbed Scully from her sleep. Pressure; a cool pressure on the backs of her legs. Awareness of not being alone. And then, a wisp of laughter, disappearing out of the room.

Scully’s body jolted, and she pulled herself up against the headboard in a swift movement as a chill blew through the room. Cocking an ear, she heard faint tittering coming from beyond the door, echoing down the hall.

“Missy?” she ventured warily. 

The sound became more distant as Scully climbed off the bed, moved toward the light spilling into the room through the crack in the door. She padded out into the hallway, a flickering glow licking off the walls, from a fire downstairs she did not light, burning in the fireplace.

_ “Dana, I’m down here.”  _

“Missy,” Scully said again, confusion sweeping her brow. 

Creeping down the stairs, she descending slowly. Down, down into _ Mulder’s  _ cosy living room. _ Her _ old living room. Puzzled, she snapped her head around, looked back up the stairs of her mother’s house. It was no longer there, just the landing, the familiar parquetry floor of the old house she had shared with Mulder for years.

“Dana,” calling her again. 

Making her way to the bottom of the stairs, she saw Missy sitting on a rug by the hearth, a blanket wrapped about her. She was smiling up at Scully, who, overcome with emotions, began to weep.

“Missy,” she choked, rushing to her, falling to her knees and hugging her, curling in her lap. 

Missy laughed gently. “Dana. Wanna talk about boys?”

Scully laughed too, a guffaw of emotion through tears.

Remain there, she closed her eyes, splashing great watery tears onto her cheeks—a smile stirring at the corners of her mouth, as her sister began to stroke her hair.

“Boys?” Scully echoed.

“Yeah, tell me what’s going on, Dana,” Missy quizzed, as she combed her fingers through Scully’s hair.

“I love him,” Scully began, sitting up, collecting herself, as Missy draped a blanket around her, fussing, adjusting it, smoothing it down her shoulders. 

Scully was unable to tear her eyes off her older sister, who was so very much younger than her.  _ Forever 34.  _ She allowed Missy to brush her fingertips across her brow, tuck her hair behind her ear. 

Missy’s eyes scanned over Scully’s face. “Loving somebody, that’s the easy part, isn’t it.”

Scully nodded, adding, in a whisper of a breath, “I just don’t know if I can go back.”

“Why? What are you afraid of, Dana?” 

“It being the same, as before,” she said, all at once. “It was heartbreaking, in the end. I can’t see him like that again. He was,” she sucked in some air “... just so broken. I didn’t know how to help him,” she admitted, roughly swiping her eyes.

“ _ Did  _ he need your help?” Missy queried, kindly.

“What do you mean?”

Footsteps stole her attention. It was her other self, striding to the front door. The inky blackness of the night beyond the window panes, replaced with the bright yellow of the morning sun, streaming through the glass. Younger Scully spun on her heel, dressed in a skirt suit, addressing Mulder.

“You don’t think I can do the job?”

“Love,” he pacified, stepping up and cupping her cheek, “you are the most capable person I have ever known. Of course, you could do it, they’d be stupid not to hire you.”

“What then?” she questioned, looking somewhat exasperated. 

Mulder blew air through his teeth, bit his lip. “Scully,” he hesitated, eyes welling, “you -- you cry yourself to sleep, most nights—”

Scully took a step back, an expression flooding her features—a mix of shame and shock. “I didn’t know you heard me.”

Stepping forward, into her again, he continued tenderly. “I just question if you taking a job, where you’ll be surrounded by _ children;  _ suffering, ill—”. He paused, traced her brow. “—possibly  _ dying  _ children, is really what you need right now.”

Moving away from him, Scully grabbed her briefcase from by the door, turned the handle, spoke, continuing to face away from him. “I gotta go, I’ll be late for my interview.”

She was gone before Mulder could respond.

By the fire, Scully fixed on him, watched him intently as he said under his breath, wearily, “you’ve paid enough penance, my Love.” 

He stood by the window, watched as she drove away down the long drive, wiping his eyes.

Bewildered, Scully returned her focus to Missy, who was regarding her, with a compassionate expression.

“It wasn’t penance,” she said to her sister, in defence.

Missy continued with that look, smiling gently across at Scully, placing her palm over her knee.

Scully had begun to cry, “it wasn’t,” she repeated in a tiny voice, with far less conviction.

Glancing back to the window, it was dark outside again, and Mulder was gone.

“I thought he just didn’t want to be alone here, that he was trying to hold me back,” she explained.

“He loved you, Dana, did you really believe that?” Missy asked her in her warm, soothing voice. 

“I don’t know,” she said, her mind ticking over, “I guess...” she started, but trailed off, losing her train of thought; the sound of fingers, clicking over a keyboard distracting her. 

Light spilled out of Mulder’s study, where the noise was coming from. Rising, Scully looked back down at Missy, who smiled up at her, and nodded toward the room. Scully tiptoed through the doorway, Mulder unmoving as she made her way behind him and looked at the computer. 

Scanning the screen, her jaw dropped open. “What?” she blurted, “he’s looking for William.” Eyes wide, brimming with moisture, “why didn’t he tell me that?” she asked, twisting toward Missy, who was standing in the corner of the room. 

Shocked, trembling, Scully regarded Mulder as he continued to click away at the computer, concentrating. A determined look upon his beautiful face.

“You coming to bed?” that other Scully queried, appearing in the doorway. 

Mulder’s head snapped up, and he closed down an email he had been composing, a correspondence about William’s possible whereabouts. “Soon, Love,” he said warmly.

Looking deflated, she nodded and left, her footfall on the stairs heard in her wake.

“I thought all he was in here looking for was the next conspiracy,” Scully said, “why didn’t he say?”

“How would you have reacted if he had?” Missy questioned, “and then, not found him.”

Scully’s brow furrowed in thought. “I don’t know, I … I would have … um,” she began as Missy took her hand and led her slowly out of the room. “I guess, I ... I don’t know,” she answered, sitting back by the fire, “if I could have coped.” Shaking her head, tears began streaming down her cheeks, sniffing, she wiped her nose, looked back at his study. “I think he was looking for ... for a way to help me.”

Missy squeezed her hand.

Scully swallowed hard, her head spinning before something caught her eye. _ Scully, _ perched on a step, halfway up the staircase, hugging her knees. Crying. 

“I remember,” she said, gasping a breath, nodding toward herself, “I think ... this might have been the night I decided to leave.” She wiped, the tears dripping off her chin with the back of her hand. “That whatever he was doing down here, in that little cave, was more important than ... than me,” she said, lips trembling.

Turning to Missy, she added, “it was  _ me _ , wasn’t it?”

Missy reached out, cupped her cheek. “It was easier for you, Dana, than to face your ghosts, to pretend it didn’t still affect you, every day. That it didn’t permeate—”

“—everything,” Scully finished for her. 

“I tried to leave my  _ self _ , thinking all along that he was the one… Oh God,” she said, staring into Mulder’s dark, empty study. “He was just reacting to me, to my...” she slapped her hand to her mouth. “You should be a psychologist,” she gulped breathlessly, half laughing half crying, spinning to Missy. 

But Mulder’s warm voice pulled at her again. Older still, he was on the phone, the one on the wall by the kitchen, finishing a conversation she recognised. 

“Okay, you sure you don’t want me there? Or, you could come back home, here?” He nodded, adding lovingly, “night Scully,” and then he hung up the phone. 

Scully and Missy looked on as Mulder fixed himself a microwave dinner, and settled on the couch. Switching on the television, he clicked the remote and the familiar theme music of  _ ‘Plan 9 From Outer Space,’  _ filled the room. 

Scully smirked, gazed at him affectionately, as he ate in silence, watching the film. Once his meal was over, he took some papers from his briefcase, and tore open an envelope; the one Scully recognised as being from Oxford. Rising, she stepped over and sat by him, read over his shoulder. It was an offer to teach; a placement. Apprehension rose, like bile up the back of her throat. She searched his face, but he didn’t seem surprised at the information in the letter. He sighed and closed his eyes, dragged his hand down his face and sighed. 

“Don’t go,” she whispered, though he didn’t hear her. 

Scully, overcome, clutched her stomach, clamped her palm to her face, got up and ran, burst through the bathroom door—

—and then stopped, frozen. Saw herself on Missy’s bed in the spare room of her mother’s house.  _ That  _ Scully stirred and suddenly retched, heaving over the side of the bed, and vomiting on the rug. 

Scully felt faint, ill, caught in a vortex, she spun, dizzy. Closing her eyes, she held her hands to her head. 

Blinking, she was lying face down on the bed, her head dangling over the side. She had just thrown up on the floor. Swiping at the mouth with the back of her hand, she got up, quickly rolled up the rug and carried it down to the laundry room. After putting it in the sink, she rinsed her mouth, splashed her face. Steadying herself, she hung onto the sides of the basin so she wouldn’t fall over.

Sucking in a breath, Scully managed to make her way out to the phone in the kitchen, dialled the number for her old house. Mulder answered. 

“Hi,” she began, weakly.

“Scully, what’s wrong?” he asked, and she could hear the rising panic in his voice.

“I don’t feel well, Mulder.”

“Scully, stay there, I’m coming to get you, okay?” 

Before she could say another word, he had hung up the phone. 

Shuffling out to the living room, she curled herself into an armchair, her father’s favourite, and fell into sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last part will be posted tomorrow. Thank you for your patience Tori x


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FICTOBER Day 26 - Prompt: “that didn’t stop you before”

Growing up, the four Scully children were used to their father being away at sea, for extended stretches at a time. His presence was always felt, though; their mother running a tight ship in his absence, on military time.

Maggie Scully’s homemade apple pie was her husband’s favourite dish, and she would bake one whenever he was due to come home. It became such a Pavlovian response, exciting the children, that she had to cease making it, on any other occasion.

 _He must be coming home today,_ Scully imagined vaguely, splintered between subliminal and conscious thought. Aromas beginning to pull at her, waking her; the sickly-sweet smell of stewing fruit.

Unfurling her legs and opening her eyes, she stretched her arms above her head, yawned. Her mother’s living room flooding her senses; being cradled by the cushion of the chair she was in, the amber glow of the lamplight, the ticking of the hall clock. But something felt off.

Someone else was in the house. 

Without consideration, she called out. “Dad?” A question. A quiet sense that she hadn’t asked for him that way—as if he might be in the next room—in a very, very long while.

The sounds of footfall gathered Scully’s attention, recall of the high shine of her father’s dress shoes on the floorboards as the resonances began to vanish down the hallway. 

“Ahab?” Scully questions tentatively, rising, making her way after the sounds. Around the corner and a figure disappeared through a door.

_Starbuck…_

She heard and followed.

_…Starbuck._

Again.

Holding her breath, she found her way through the doorway, passed into darkness and out into—

—the staff locker room, at the hospital where she used to work.

Seeking her father, she heard a voice. 

“—I’m going to miss his recital,” a women’s voice. Whoever she was, she sounded disappointed.

Scully persisted into the space, looking for the source and happened on two women, sitting in scrubs conversing, while removing their shoes. 

Scully knew them, not personally, they were colleagues, back when she worked at Our Lady of Sorrows.

“Why don’t you ask Dana, ah Doctor Scully, to cover your shift again?” 

“Oh, good idea. She always says yes.”

“Yeah, bless her. I don’t think she has any family to go home to.”

_Starbuck…_

_…Starbuck._

Scully furrowed her brow, and she turned around, pushed through the locker room door, following the sounds of his voice, calling to her. She found herself in a hospital ward, her father there too, in uniform. He was standing in the middle of the room, back to her. As she approached him, she noticed another Scully, in a lab coat, older—hair longer, lighter—sitting in the dark by a child’s bed.

“Dad,” Scully ventured, with trepidation, creeping, though she knew her other self would not see or hear them. Coming about him, he turned and noticed her, and she threw herself into his arms, wept. It had never been their way to greet one another, but it had been nigh on 20 years since she had seen him, heard him, touched him. Exhaling, she closed her eyes and let herself melt into his arms.

“Now, now, Starbuck,” he soothed, smoothing her hair. 

Still in his arms, she leaned back, studied him, and his eyes swept her face too; blotchy with emotion. 

“Look at you,” he said with a loving smile, a palm on either shoulder.

“It’s been … so long,” she said. “It so good to see you, Ahab.” Scully saluted him then, he let her go and saluted her right back.

Exhaling, she looked around the ward, across at her self, “Dad, what am I doing here?” He drew an arm across her shoulders, and they both faced the bed. “I don’t think I want to see anymore,” she lamented, recalling her strange emotional evening; she was tired and confused.

“There, there,” he uttered, pulling her close.

Scully wiped an errant tear, looked back over to her other self; sad, deflated and weary-looking, slumped down in a chair. For the first time, she took notice of the child in the bed and let and gasped. A little girl of about four, small with blonde hair in a short bob hair cut, asleep. The girl looked gravely ill. Immediately Scully knew that the similarities would not be lost on her older self. Regarding her, Scully could see her eyes were brimming, and her lip trembled as she picked up the chart and began flipping through it.

“I don’t understand what I’m doing here,” Scully said again. “I don’t remember this child. I left this job,” she said, looking about the room, shaking her head. “I’m back working at the Bureau now, my old department, with Mulder.”

William Senior hugged his child near, explained in his low, but commanding voice, “this hasn’t happened yet, Starbuck. I am here to show you what may come.”

“What do you mean, _what may come?_ ” she asked, looking up at him.

“Where your choices _might_ take you.”

“My choices—?”

A door creaked interrupting her, and a man entered the room; Scully and her father twisted to see. She recognised him; it was the head of the hospital, Father Ybarra. Seated Scully spun her head around too, dropped her chin to her chest as he approached her.

“Doctor Scully,” he addressed, seemingly disheartened to see her. “Your shift ended hours ago. What are you still doing here?”

She rose from the chair, replying, “I just … I didn’t want her to be alone.” She nodded toward the bed.

“She wouldn’t be. I have a nursing staff right outside,” he explained, somewhat tersely, “a doctor sleeping just down the hall.” He looked at his wristwatch. “Aren’t you due back here in just a few hours? You look exhausted.”

“I’m fine.”

 _I’m fine_. Scully contemplated, watched herself intently from the safely of her father’s embrace—she knew that line meant anything but. From where she was standing, she could sense the other Scully’s tension, feel her discomfort and emotion and exhaustion over her like a cloak.

“Dana, take a few days off,” he advised, “You’ve done double shifts all week; I can see how fatigued you are.” 

“No, I’m fine. I’m handling it.”

He took a deep breath and a step toward her. “I’ve heard that one,” he began, with a tight smile, “and that didn’t stop you before; from burning out.” He placed a palm to her shoulder. “Listen, you aren’t any use to me,” he said, his tone softening, “or any of your patients unless you actually leave the hospital. Go home, get some rest.”

Scully eyed her carefully, noticed how her breath hitched, how she bit her lip. Watching the scene play before her, she had to admit that she agreed that her other self was not okay, agreeing with Father Ybarra. She clutched at her father a little tighter.

“Father,” Doctor Scully pleaded, emotion spilling from her voice. “What about Georgia? I want to be here when she wakes, I told her I would be.” 

The man sighed, “you can’t be all things to all people, Dana. Please, go home, go to bed, look after yourself first, we’ll look after her. It’s not a request.” He turned and began to leave. “I’ll make an appointment for you to come and see me next week. And one with the staff counsellor. Good night, Dana. Go home.”

And he was gone. 

Older Scully captured her forehead in her hands, rubbed her temples within the vice of her fingertips. Exhaling, she sniffed sharply and brushed a palm under her eyes, before stepping up to the little girl. Tenderly, she stroked her brow and lovingly pulled her blanket up. Then she quickly gathered her things, and walked out of the room.

“I look so unhappy,” Scully said to her father.

Tucking her tighter under his arm he said, “come on, I’ve more to show you…”, as they made their way toward the door.

“Do we have to?” she half-joked, moving with him. “Maybe I’ve seen enough.”

“Starbuck,” he began, shoes resounding off the shiny hospital floor, “do you remember when I taught you how to play chess?”

“Uh, huh,” Scully nodded, sleepily.

“How you had to play each move out in your head, visualise it, many steps ahead, to see what could happen, before you committed to it?”

“I remember,” she replied as they walked together down a long corridor.

“Nothing is set in stone, Starbuck until you touch that piece—until you make a play. But first, you step it out in your head…”

Closing her eyes, allowing her father to steer her, Scully recalled how he had taught Bill Junior the rules of chess first. Missy wasn’t interested, and Charlie too young. Dana would watch, fascinated until finally, her father showed her too. He would play hard against them as he helped them with their game, allow them to take moves over again, but never let them win. So, at 13, when Dana beat him, she beat him fair and square, and she had never seen him so proud of her. Bill hadn’t ever done that, and he scowled at her for a week after.

_Nothing is set in stone…_

Opening her eyes, they were walking toward a car in the hospital’s underground parking garage. Heels clicking ahead of them, Scully realised he was following her older self to her car. 

The headlights flashed, the door locks clicked, and her father climbed into the back seat. He held opened the door for her to join him, as the Doctor Scully closed the driver’s side door, turned the engine over. 

The clock on the dashboard read 2:38 am. 

“I look so tired,” she remarked; Scully in the front seat rubbing at her eyes, yawning and cricking her neck.

The car rolled out of the parking garage and hit the quiet, middle of the night, streets. She remembered that late-night drive, back when she would stay at the hospital long after her shift had ended too. In the car, both looking forward to climbing into bed with Mulder, to warm herself against his familiar body, and apprehensive that she would find him, still hunched in his messy study, barely offering her a glance as she walked passed the door.

_Oh God, he was just reacting to me..._

Leaning against her father’s shoulder, she steadied her breath and watched the road beyond the windscreen.

“Daddy, I don’t know what to do,” she lamented.

“Starbuck”, his low voice rumbled, “when Apollo 13’s equipment failed, they had every scientist at NASA working around the clock to figure out how to guide those boys home. Working out how to navigate without their guidance systems. The best brains in the world struggled to figure that out; what they might do to get that shuttle, 238 000 miles away, back to Earth. Do you know how they did it, in the end?

“No. How?”

“The astronauts looked out the window. Aimed for home. They didn’t need any fancy equipment or pages of maths to find their way. It ended up being that simple.”

Scully smiled to herself. Oh, how she had missed her father's way, of telling a tale, but allowing her to find the meaning within it.

And then inertia seized her. An engine revved, tires screeched, headlights flashed against a tree, as glass shattered, and a horn blasted, and the world spun and spun and spun.

“Daddy,” she screamed, and then ... nothing.

Curled on her side, she stirred; found herself on a row of uncomfortable chairs. Sitting up, she was in another hospital room—from all of the equipment, the ICU. And she was faced with herself in a bed, again—eyes closed, leg in a cast, hooked up to monitors.

Sweeping around the room, her father was sitting in a chair, watching her. 

“What happened?”

“Car accident. It’s okay, you pull through Starbuck, you’ll pull through.”

Scully looked back at herself, a nurse silently marking something off a chart, checking machinery. 

Standing, voices beyond the room drew her out to a nurse’s station. A woman seated at the desk had a phone receiver tucked between her ear and her shoulder, another was looking at her expectantly.

“No answer,” the nurse on the phone said, shaking her head. 

“Is there another name?”

Scully walked behind them, looked over their shoulders at the computer. It was her file, Mulder’s name as the emergency contact. 

“Has anyone been to visit?” she continued.

“Yes, a reverend or something, from another hospital. She’s a doctor,” the nurse with the phone said, nodding toward Scully’s bed. “No one else.”

A younger woman who had been quiet for the exchange, a student nurse, according to her badge, looked at the computer screen.

“That is one unusual name,” she smiled. “Wait a minute.” Taking her phone from her pocket, she tapped on the screen. After a moment she handed it over, “here, it’s ringing,” she grinned.

The seated nurse took it with slight hesitation, held it to her ear.

Scully looked back into the ward through a wall of glass. Her father was gone. She turned then, in the direction of a loud ringing. Another phone. It wasn’t coming from the ward's phone, and it had begun to grow louder. Following, it was coming from behind a large wooden door down the end of a dim hall. The door looked out of place in the hospital corridor. Tentatively, she pushed it opened and stepped into a room.

The ringing stopped as she walked into a grand looking office, books packed into the mahogany bookshelves, that lined the walls. Mulder was sitting behind a desk, typing on a laptop. A little more salt in his pepper coloured hair. He looked good. 

Moving around behind him, where her father was standing, Scully found that though she could see and hear him, she could not smell him. That Mulder scent she loved so much. His desk was cluttered as ever, and she noticed a framed photograph of herself on his desk amongst the debris. A smile curled at the corners of her lips.

A knocking rapped on the solid door, and all three behind the desk looked in that direction. A very young woman was standing there. 

“Come in,” Mulder said, gesturing.

“Professor Mulder,” she began, in a crisp English accent. “I need some help the with diagnostics assignment, please.”

“Sit,” he offered, indicating a chair in front of his desk. “So, what can I do you for?” he asked. 

Scully realised all at once—the letter, the offer to teach ... “He left?” she faltered, hurt in her voice.

She felt her father's hand on her shoulder. “He wasn’t the one who left, sweetheart. Not really. You know that,” he said gently.

A phone began to ring and Mulder ceased what he had been saying to the student.

“Is that your phone?” he quizzed.

“No,” she answered, shaking her head, “I think it’s yours,” she replied, nodding toward Mulder’s cell, face down on his desk.

“That’s not my ring tone.” Mulder grabbed his phone. Looked at it and turned it to face the student. 

“Oh, it means someone is calling you through Facebook.”

“Do I have Facebook?”

“You do, Sir. For the class group chats—”

“Oh, of course,” his brow furrowed.

The girl looked at him and smiled, amused.

“Hello?” Mulder said hesitantly, answering. 

“Oh,” he stood sharply, as the colour began to drain from his face. “Will she be okay? … No, I’m in Oxford. England.” He started to gather his briefcase, jacket from the back of his chair. _‘Sorry,’_ he mouthed to the young woman as he headed for the door, “… I can give you her brother Bill’s number…” and he was gone.

Scully chased after him through the doorway. On the other side, she found herself back by the nurse’s station outside of her hospital room. Mulder was standing there, talking with a nurse. 

“What happened to her,” Mulder asked frantically, though somewhat wearily.

“I’ll page the doctor, you can go in and see her,” the nurse said, dismissing him.

“Please, I’m her husband. I just got off a nine-hour flight,” he implored, looking despondent.

“Okay. Um, she crashed her car, fell asleep at the wheel. No other vehicles involved,” she assured. “She has some broken bones, some internal injuries. She’s in a coma, but her vitals are strong.”

“Can I see her now?”

The nurse nodded.

Mulder rushed into the room, Scully trailing him, her father a few paces behind. He immediately pulled a chair up close to the bedside, kissed the older Scully's temple, grasped her hand, tears rolling down his cheeks.

“Scully, it’s me” he choked, “please wake up, my Love.” He slid his palm into hers, pressed his lips there to the back of her hand, and stayed that way, watching her. Every now and then trying to coax her into consciousness.

“Please wake up. Scully, Scully, please, it’s me, Mulder. Please wake up, my Love," he said, stroking her face, kissing her hand. Over and again.

“I do love him, Dad, so much,” she tried to explain, emotions glutching at her throat, making it difficult to speak. "But I get stuck sometimes, trying to figure out how not to make the same mistakes again,” she said, still watching Mulder fawn over her in the bed.

“As a sailor, you have to learn to navigator by the stars. If the devices you’ve always trusted, stop working. Stop giving accurate readings...” he tapered off. “Starbuck,” he began again, and something in his voice compelled Scully to look at him. “It’s why Polaris is my favourite celestial body. From Earth, it’s a fixed point in the night sky and it's what I always thought of as the heart of the heavens, something I could always trust.”

Scully watched Mulder as she listened. Watched the way he touched her, fussed with the blankets, kissed her temple, whispered in her ear.

“Follow the North Star,” her father continued, “and that would take me home.” He turned to her, and she looked up at him, at the familiar but somehow distant terrain of his face. “Sometimes, we need to turn off our mind, our worn-out old instruments, and just listen to our heart.”

Scully bit her lip, a tear slipping down her cheek. There was nothing else to say. Leaning on her father’s shoulder, she sighed and gazed at Mulder again, looked on as he caressed her brow, stroked her hair; Scully could almost feel his fingertips drag across her own scalp.

The safety of her father was warm beside her. The acute loss she had felt when he died, was not just about missing _him_ , but it was also knowing that her fiercest protector was gone. Remembering the pull of him, the assuredness of him; her Captain Ahab, she closed her eyes. 

As slumber began to pull her under, Mulder's voice reverberated and resonated… 

_Scully, it’s me. Please wake up, my Love._

_Scully, stay there, I’m coming to get you, okay? I’m coming to get you. I’m coming to you…_

Listening to him, she recalled a time, long ago, when she felt he sometimes ran from her, may not have told her where he was going. Might have ditched her in pursuit of other things. Perhaps that was farther behind them than she had realised. Working with him again, felt vastly different. He didn't do that any longer and she felt very much like the centre of things.

_You’re never just anything to me, Scully._

They had both been through so much, and for better or worse she had left. And then right under her nose, he had emerged like a phoenix. There was a quiet confidence about him. A self-assuredness. Even though they had fallen back into bed, a few times, he never pressured her for it to mean anything. Just quietly let her know that he would be there, when or if, she was ready to come home. And that if she genuinely wanted to move on, he would let her go.

_He was just reacting to me…_

She felt herself drifting down, her father’s presence dissolving into nothingness.

She was on her back then, on a bed, but she couldn't open her eyes. They were so heavy. Everything felt so heavy and Mulder's voice echoing inside her head. 

_Scully, Scully, wake up. It’s me, Mulder. Please wake up._

Someone was holding her hand. Cool, smooth, strong hands. Fingers brushing through her hair.

_Scully, please wake up._

She could smell Mulder; sunflower seeds, a hint of cologne, perhaps a day old, and the sweet heady smell of his fresh sweat.

“Scully, it’s me … please wake up, my Love.”

Blinking, she opened her eyes, and he was there. His face, looking at her, hazel eyes undoing her. 

“Hi,” he said, grinning, and she saw relief wash over his beautiful face.

“Where am I,” she said, grasping at his hand, looking wildly about the room as she attempted to sit up. Mulder helped her, arranged pillows behind her as she realised she was in a hospital bed.

“You were unconscious when I found you.”

“What, why?”

“There was a gas leak,” he explained, perching on the bed beside her, holding her hands and kissing them. “The paramedics could smell it as soon as they turned up. I think, because of the explosion yesterday, maybe, you couldn’t detect it.”

“I don’t remember smelling anything,” she said.

Mulder tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear, a gesture he would do, whether a hair was out of place or not. “You were poisoned, that’s why you felt so ill.”

“Mulder,” Scully began, slowly, looking about. “My Dad,” her brow furrow, “he was here. Missy … Mom, they—”

Mulder chuckled softly, grinning.

"What?”

“Well, you must have been high as a kite Scully, with those gas levels the way they were.”

“No,” she protested weakly.

“What, what is it?” he asked her, and she looked at him them, really looked; it all became so clear.

Mulder was not a ghost. He was real. Was the most authentic person she knew. Had always been. It had been one of the things about him, that she fell in love with. That, and his stubbornness, which truthfully, was just his passion for things. He had always marvelled at the sublime.

Had always marvelled at her.

Like her father before him, an almost tangible trust was felt, a knowing that he was her most ardent protector. That he always would be.

_Perhaps he always was..._

Her heart was pounding.

Reaching up, she cupped his jaw, and leaned into him, pressed her mouths to his. Parting his lips he kissed her, and it felt like coming home. So, she told him, settled back amongst the pillows and said, “I need to tell you that … I want to come home.”

“Okay”, he said, as if he was holding something back, searching her face. Like he didn’t quite believe it.

“I’m sorry,” she admitted.

“For what,” he said, so tenderly.

“Leaving,” she breathed, though that wasn’t the extent of it. “For blaming you,” she admitted, biting her lip, her lashes lined with moisture.

“Oh, Love,” he hugged her. “I think we both did a bit of that,” he said into her hair.

“I want to come home,” she said again. Wanting to make it clear to him, she added, “to you. Because I love you, and I want us to be together again.”

Pulling back, just enough to look at her, his expression had changed, he swallowed hard, and spoke, “I want that more than ever.” He smiled then, a megawatts grin, then kissed her, again and again, deeply, passionately.

Finally breaking apart, he pressed his forehead to hers.

“I think … I _know_ I need to see someone—whether we can find him again, or not Mulder—I’m going to get some help. Some therapy.”

Mulder cupped the back of her neck, “I think, in hindsight,” he said, leaning back from her, “you did the right thing, leaving.” A look of confused began at her brow, and he smoothed it away. “For us to get here. As painful as it was, I think we both had to tend to our own broken wings.”

Taking a deep breath, Scully nodded, gently wiped a tear from his cheek, and placed a kiss there before sinking into his embrace. She cried then too—tears of joy, of relief, of love.

Tears of happiness, _for what may come._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to acknowledge that this story is my spin on Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol" - A most timeless tale in which to tell of Scully's awakening to what has been, what is, and what may come.
> 
> ~
> 
> I'll be posting something new each day in October for Fictober from this tumblr [prompt list](https://fictober-event.tumblr.com/post/628547358001594368/fictober-event-the-prompts-for-2020%22).
> 
> Subscribe to the series [here](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951573)
> 
> Thank you for reading. Comments most welcome 💕

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you Tori, I really hope you enjoyed this as much I did writing it.
> 
> I'm sorry it will be delivered in two parts. Chapter 2 I'll post tomorrow. xxx


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